Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 85

33. “Civic and Educational Notes: Disfranchisement No Permanent Cure,” Gunton’s Magazine (September 1901): 268-70.

Editorial comment rejecting the notion that repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment would solve the race problem in the South. “It was a mistake to give the ballot to a race of Africans just out of slavery, and no doubt it would be a relief if the mistake could be undone; but it is too late now to approach the problem that way. Repeal of the fifteenth amendment is a chimerical proposition, but the South is really accomplishing the same object by the educational test for negroes only. To say nothing of the gross injustice of such discrimination, it is only a superficial remedy; it is likely to deaden rather than quicken active interest in the only kind of efforts that can do any good. . . . Perhaps this is not surprising, in view of the two simple facts, first, that the negro is not fit for the franchise, second, that he is an efficient field laborer. If there were any genuine, widespread disposition to aid his advancement, an educational test that applied to both races might be very salutary, but more probably it will now only make it an object to see that the blacks get as little education as possible, so that they may not become qualified voters. The various problems created by the negro’s presence in the South can never be permanently solved except in raising the whole industrial, social an political capacity of the race” (emphasis in original).